


ghosts with just voices

by smolsarcasticraspberry



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Prompt Fill, grungy space aesthetic au, sf au, shallura - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 17:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16958394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolsarcasticraspberry/pseuds/smolsarcasticraspberry
Summary: Vrepit Sal’s Diner in the Theskar asteroid belt is where people go to disappear.a grungy, lived-in SF AU where Shiro escapes the gladiator arena and lives in hiding on a remote asteroid, where he meets Allura.





	ghosts with just voices

**Author's Note:**

> i legit wrote this AGES ago and then realised i never put it up on AO3? so it was originally on my blog (or sideblog i don't remember) and now it's up here. still love this, btw. still absolutely adore this aesthetic. will probably write a novel with this kind of grungy SF aesthetic one day. but for now: some shallura!

There aren't many places in the galaxy where an escaped gladiator can find work, but Vrepit Sal's Diner down on the docks asks no questions, maybe because Sal himself isn't really in a position to be picky.

There's an ex-con on the staff, and two runaways from the Galra army, and some Bytor called Slav who's on the lam from max security. Vrepit Sal's is the place people go to disappear. Much like the Theskar asteroid belt in general, and this spaceport in particular. This is where you come when you need to vanish without a trace.

Shiro works the night shifts, mostly. It's not like he minds the dark.

+

She comes in almost every evening. Dark brown skin, and cropped white hair that pokes out of the edge of her beanie. She wears a security guard's uniform and orders black coffee to go.

Some nights, she sits outside on the hard metal chairs and sips her coffee like she's meditating on the taste of it. The lurid lights of the cargo craft bathe her face in reds and greens, and her eyes drift far away, staring past the vast metal bulks to the starscape beyond. It's at one of these times that he finally summons the courage to talk to her, beyond the perfunctory niceties of taking her order.

"You're a long way from home, huh?" he says, as he makes a show of clearing the table next to her.

"I don't have a home," she says softly. Then she looks up, and her eyes return to the here and now, and she stands up abruptly.

"You make excellent coffee," she says.

"Thank you," he replies, but she's already turned and gone.

+

They get to talking, sometimes. She gives her name as Romelle, but there's a hesitancy to it, as if she once went by something else. The ghost of a name she can no longer speak aloud hangs in the air. Shiro doesn't ask. He told Sal his name was Ryou.

"So what's your secret superpower?" he asks her as he cleans the display one evening, and she sits on one of the ancient, sagging sofas and picks at a cookie.

"What do you mean, superpower?"

"Well, you work security," Shiro points out. "But you're smaller than me. And I'm smaller than most Galra. So what's your superpower?"

The look she gives him is heavy with mirth, and the corner of her mouth quirks into a smile. It's a rare sight. She has a face made for humour, but her smiles come and go like spies.

"I'm stronger than I look," she says, cryptically.

"Is that so?" Shiro lifts an eyebrow at her, and that hint of a smile pulls at her lips again. "I should ask you to help me next time I'm unpacking deliveries."

"What about you?" she counters. "What's your superpower?"

"You don't need any special skills to make the best coffee on the docks."

She eyes him over the rim of her cup, and he turns his attention back to the display in front of him so he doesn't have to meet her gaze.

"That arm isn't a normal prosthetic, is it?" she asks quietly.

He glances around. But they're alone, here, in this place where he doesn't have to be the gladiator, or the Champion; in this place where he's nothing but a very good barista. And he told himself it was a fresh start, when he tied on the frayed apron that first night, Sal watching him as he learned how to work the drinks machine. Maybe it is. Maybe it's the best shot he has of something vaguely approaching normal, now, after everything - Earth a distant memory, so far away even light would forget itself before it reached there - so maybe this is it. Vrepit Sal's Diner, and endless nights alone with the lights of spaceships, their hulls gleaming against the blackness of the void.

"No," he tells her, his voice as small as a single blue-green planet lost in the endless impassable reaches of space. "No, it's not a normal prosthetic."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

An operating table. And - purple light. Shadowy figures, and cold restraints, and--

He squeezes his eyes shut; squeezes the metal fingers together. Counts down from ten to one and forces himself to open his eyes, to observe every fine detail of the display in front of him.

"No," he says. "I can't talk about it."

He turns around - but she's there, right behind him, looking shocked at his sudden movement. They have never been this close.

"I'm sorry," she says. She lays one hand on his arm - fleetingly, as brief as a breath - and then she turns to leave, with just one last parting glance full of sadness and… understanding.

+

He dreams of Earth, still, sometimes. Those are pleasant dreams. Green grass, blue skies, the rush of waves on the beach and the smell of woodsmoke or popcorn or milkshake.

He always wanted to come to space. But now he's here and he dreams of Earth, in bright lonely colours, and he wishes for a distant blue-green planet that he'll never see again.

+

One night, she comes in right at the end of his shift, just as he's closing up. She's not wearing her uniform, but she still has the beanie crammed firmly on her head.

"The usual?" he asks.

"When do you get off work?" she says - a question for a question. Odd.

"Right about now," he tells her. "But if you want something, I'll make it for you. The usual?"

"Please."

He makes the drink, and she stands and watches him, a curious expression on her face. He sets the full cup down on the counter, and she adds sweetener to the hot liquid and stirs it slowly, graceful fingers gliding in circles as the steam rises in the dim light.

"What are you having?" she asks him. He blinks at her.

"Uh. I usually have a tea on my way home."

"Can I walk you out?" she says. She fixes him with an intense stare - and her eyes are blue, like the ocean, like the sky on Earth, and he wants to drown in them.

"I don't live far," he says. "It's not a long walk."

"I don't mind."

+

They leave together, and Shiro hands her his drink to hold as he locks the door behind him, and when he takes it back out of her hand their fingers brush just briefly. The endless hum and chatter of the docks rises around them, but the rest of the small asteroid is in its rest cycle and most of the shops are closed. A few breakfast diners are just warming up for the day cycle to come. A spaceport never truly sleeps, Shiro thinks, and he remembers how it felt to drift through the solar system towards Pluto, no day or night except the arbitrary divisions they made for themselves, and laugh and joke with Matt and Commander Holt.

He wonders if they got out, like he did.

"You are not any alien species that I know of," she says, and he shakes off the memories that claw at him and turns to the woman beside him. He knows she's not human. The pink marks under her eyes give her away, and in the weeks they've known each other he's come to suspect that her beanie is meant to hide something odd about her ears.

"I'm the only one of my kind," Shiro says, and he hopes that's still a lie. The word 'human' can never pass his lips again. Nor can the word 'Earth'. Silence might be the only thing he can do now to keep them all safe.

"It's lonely, isn't it?" she says. She understands. Her words weigh heavy in the air, and he knows she knows.

"What are you doing out here?" he asks. "Did you come here to disappear?"

She meets his gaze, and that familiar half-smile plays on her lips.

"Isn't that why we're all here?" she says. "No one works a dead-end spaceport like this unless they're hiding from something."

Galra soldiers, and - the cheers of a crowd, the roar of the monster in front of him. Sweat that stings his eyes; an ache in his muscles. The tang of blood on his tongue, and - grit. Dirt. Pain that never quite seems to fade.

Oh yes. He has so much to hide from.

"Does the past count as 'something'?" he asks wryly.

She doesn't answer. Their footsteps ring out on the metal stairs that climb from the docks to the living quarters above, and the endless smell of steam and ships' engines drifts up with them as they ascend. Her eyes drift to the vastness of the night sky and the stars that wink beyond the bulk of the ships below them.

"Which star are you looking for?" Shiro asks her.

She shakes her head. "It's not there anymore."

He stops at the top of the stairs and leans on the metal railing, and she leans beside him. They gaze out at the spaceport; the never-ending grime and noise of it, the garish lights, the ships that come and go and never stay long enough to feel familiar. Up here, it's a little quieter, only the ubiquitous background hum of the asteroid's machinery undercutting the silence. Shiro sips his tea and thinks about honesty, and how much the truth weighs, and how bright it might shine in the starlit sky.

"I can't ever go back to where I came from," he says softly. "I was a Galra prisoner. If I go back to my home planet, the Galra might follow me there."

She nods. "My planet was destroyed by the Galra centuries ago," she whispers. "I might well be the last of my kind."

They contemplate the stars together in silence. But she understands. And he understands. And that's something.

He finishes his tea and turns around.

"My apartment is just a couple of doors down," he says, and he thinks she might say goodnight and leave - but instead she walks with him, all the way to the door, as if she wishes to cling to his understanding silence a little longer. He pulls out the keycard and touches it to the lock.

"Thank you for the walk," he says. He turns to face her. She hasn't moved.

"Thank you for the company," she replies. "You are wonderful to talk to, Ryou."

There's a light in her eyes that he's never seen before - and he thinks about a distant planet, and oceans sparkling in the sunlight, and about the weight of being alone in the universe with nothing to cling to but ships that never stay, and stars that aren't his own, and a name he hasn't heard in years.

"My name isn't Ryou," he says. "It's Shiro."

"My name isn't Romelle," she replies. "It's Allura."

She offers it up like a gift, and all he wants is to whisper it against her skin, feel the shape of it when it's gasped out in ecstasy.

He's going to invite her inside, and the look in her eyes tells him she will come. He's going to kiss her, as reckless and ill-advised as that is, and from the way her teeth catch at her lip as she looks at him she'll probably kiss him back. At some point he will have to explain that he was a gladiator, but maybe that can wait until after he has run his hands through her hair; peeled off her clothes in layers; tasted eternity in the feel of her skin. Better to live first, before the past comes to crush him beneath its weight.

"Do you want to come inside?" he asks her, and for the first time since he met her, she properly smiles.


End file.
